PokerStars.com qualifier Jamie Burland has won the PokerStars.com UKIPT Brighton Main Event at the Rendezvous Casino. The 25-year old takes home £65,400 and an entry into the £5,250 PokerStars.com EPT London event, which is the season finale to the UK & Ireland Poker Tour.

Burland, who qualified for the £1,000+100 Main Event by playing a £108.50 qualifier on PokerStars.com, saw off competition from 258 other players all hoping to take home a share of the £259,000 prize pool.

Bill Seber went into the eight-handed final table as chip leader. The Texan, who came to Europe for the first time only a few weeks ago to play the PokerStars.com Baltic Festival, would eventually finish third to take home £24,600. Seber lost a coin flip to eventual winner Burland with three players remaining, and was unable to recover from losing the majority of his chips.

Photo by Mickey May

Burland spent much of the final table observing rather than playing big pots, as William Beauchamp, Jon Spinks and Tomas Cibak variously traded the chip lead. Cibak and Beauchamp in particular were very aggressive and were involved in most of the big hands. Beauchamp was eventually eliminated in fourth place for a £18,100 prize.

With the field down to three, Seber’s 7h8h was unable to beat Cibak’s Ad9d, leaving Cibak and Burland level-pegging when going into heads up play.

It did not take long for a winner to be crowned, as heads up play between the two PokerStars.com qualifiers only lasted 7 hands; the first five were uneventful, however the sixth and seventh would define the entire tournament. In the 6th, Burland made a tough but ultimately correct call on the river to win a substantial pot, which gave him a more than 2-1 chip lead. This would prove crucial in the following – and final – hand. Burland flopped two pair, Cibak a flush draw; to the delight of Burland’s many supporters, the Czech missed his outs on the turn and the river and the UKIPT crowned its second British winner.

Burland, a professional player from London, who learned to play poker in Brighton while studying at university, said of the win, “I’m really happy... it feels like a home win.” Gracious in victory, Burland said that runner-up Cibak was the best player at the final table, but that he was thrilled to have come out on top and had really enjoyed the tournament: “I think I’ll be at the rest of the UKIPT’s now, I’m definitely going to try and win the leaderboard.” If he succeeds, he will win a place at each UKIPT stop in Season 2.

Burland had an enthusiastic cheering section, including Neil Channing, who the UKIPT Brighton champion credits with having helped to improve his game. Also railing him was previous PokerStars.com UKIPT final table player Owen Robinson who was thrilled to see his friend claim the title.

The next stop in the first Season of the PokerStars.com UKIPT is at the Corn Exchange in Edinburgh on August 19-22. Qualifiers are running now for the £500+50 Main Event on PokerStars.com for as little as £5.50 or 500FPPs and players can also buy in at any Grosvenor or G Casino. For more information on how to qualify, please go to http://www.ukipt.com/tournaments/edinburgh/how_to_enter/